This book employs both ethnographic and secondary, archival data, drawing on a rich, fascinating trove of original material from the pre-1940s to the present day. It offers a unique historiographic study of twentieth century Methodist missionary work and women’s active expression of faith, practised at the critical confluence of historical and global changes. The study focuses on two English Methodist missionary nursing Sisters and siblings, Audrey and Muriel Chalkely, whose words and experiences are captured in detail, foregrounding tumultuous socio-political changes of the end of Empire and post-Independence in twentieth century Kenya and South India.
This work presents a timely revision to prevailing postcolonial critiques in placing the fundamental importance of human relationships centre stage. Offering a detailed (auto)biographical and reflective narrative, this ‘herstory’ pivots on three main thematic strands relating to people, place and passion, where socio-cultural details are vividly explored.
This book pays tribute to our former colleague, Professor Fran Biley. As part of a wider oral history project entitled “Memories of Nursing” Fran Biley interviewed two British sisters who had retired to the South of England. The two sisters, Muriel and Audrey, followed very similar missionary career paths in two different former British colonies. Two sisters spent a total of 54 years working as Methodist missionaries in India and Kenya, one as a nurse, the other as a midwife. Fran collected over 10 hours of interview data, as well as old videos, a suitcase of 35mm slides, albums full of old photographs, letters and personal papers from the two sisters. Unfortunately, Fran died far too young in November 2012, before the rich data could be analysed. Sara conducted further extensive interviews with Muriel and others who knew them, as well as undertaking a huge detective hunt to find a considerable amount of secondary data pertaining to the sisters and other Methodist missionaries across UK archives. I am glad to be able to report that Dr Muriel Chalkley, whose life is portrayed in the book, received an Honorary Doctorate from Bournemouth University in recognition of her services to nursing.
This ECR-focused event brings together researchers across disciplines within the Arts, Culture and Creative Economies.
It will feature keynote talks from three inspiring speakers in these fields, a panel discussion, and facilitated networking conversations.
The three speakers are: Dr Verity McIntosh (Virtual and Extended realities); Dr Tarek Virani (urban and urban dynamics as they pertain to culture and the creative and cultural industries); and Ms Sharon Clark (Professional and Creative Writing).
This week we received an email from the editorial office of Perspectives in Public Health with congratulations on the acceptance of your paper ‘Participatory asset mapping and photovoice interviews to scope cultural and community resources to reduce alcohol harm in Chitwan, Nepal’ [1]. The lead researcher on this public health alcohol research project in Nepal is Dr. Ranjita Dhital, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Health Studies in the Arts and Sciences Department at UCL (University College London).
The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Nepal, morbidity and mortality risks are greater per litre of pure alcohol consumed than in higher-income countries. This is largely due to poverty, poor nutrition, adverse living conditions, and poor access to care. These inequities are made worse by the dearth of understanding of the most appropriate and cost-effective approaches to reduce alcohol-related harm in LMICs. Our study aims to stimulate new thinking on how cultural and community assets could be integrated to co-designed alcohol interventions for future evaluation in LMICs, through scoping the breadth of cultural and community assets in relation to alcohol use and to exploring attitudes towards alcohol and people experiences with it.
The journal Perspectives in Public Health is published by SAGE and the paper will be Open Access when it appears online. My previous alcohol studies have focused on students [2], Nepalese migrants living in the UK [3],and Public Health measures to reduced alcohol misuse in Scotland [4].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Reference:
Dhital, R., Yoeli, H., Adhikari, A., Luitel, N.P., Nadkarni, A., van Teijlingen, E., Sin, J. (2023) Participatory asset mapping and photovoice interviews to scope cultural and community resources to reduce alcohol harm in Chitwan, Nepal, Perspectives in Public Health (accepted). DOI: 10.1177/17579139231180744).
Engs, R.C, van Teijlingen E (1997) Correlates of alcohol, tobacco & marijuana use among Scottish post-secondary helping profession students, Journal of Alcohol Studies, 58:435-44.
Congratulations the Abier Hamidi, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) whose PhD work was published in The Conversation this week (24 April) under the title Social media now trumps traditional family networks in Libya – my Facebook survey reached 446,000 women. Her piece in The Conversation on the recruitment of female participants for a PhD study in a rather patriarchal society brings together issues of anonymity, gender, and wider social culture.
This is Abier’s PhD research is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).
This month CMMPH has two new research papers focusing on COVID-19. The first one published in World Medical & Health Policy reports on a quantitative study of the availability of hand-washing facilities in households across Nepal [1]. This study used secondary data from Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) 2016 to assess the association between households’ wealth status to handwashing stations. The findings reported a statistically significant association between age of the household head, residence place, ecological zone, province, wealth status, having of mosquito net, having a radio, and TV at respondents’ household to fixed hand-washing stations at their households.
The second paper published three days ago in Vaccinesis a qualitative study of of interviews with Nepali immigrants living in the UK and their attitudes towards COVD-19 vaccination [2]. Vaccination saves lives and can be an effective strategy for preventing the spread of the COVID-19, but negative attitudes towards vaccines lead to vaccine hesitancy. This study aimed to explore the factors influencing the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Nepali community in the UK. This study found that attitudes towards COVID-19 are generally positive. Nine overlapping themes around barriers to COVID-19 vaccination were identified: (a) rumours and mis/disinformation; (b) prefer home remedies and yoga; (c) religion restriction; (d) concern towards vaccine eligibility; (e) difficulty with online vaccine booking system; (f) doubts of vaccine effectiveness after changing the second dose timeline; (g) lack of confidence in the vaccine; (h) past bad experience with the influenza vaccine; and (i) worried about side-effects. Understanding barriers to the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine can help in the design of better targeted interventions. Public health messages including favourable policy should be tailored to address those barriers and make this vaccination programme more viable and acceptable to the ethnic minority communities in the UK. This Vaccine paper includes two FHSS Visiting Faculty as co-authors: Prof. Padam Simkhada and Dr. Bibha Simkhada.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
References:
Sharma, M., Adhikari, R., van Teijlingen, E. (2022) Handwashing station in Nepal: Role of wealth status in establishing a handwashing station, World Medical & Health Policy Accepted
Simkhada, P., Tamang, P., Timilsina, L., Simkhada, B., Bissell, P., van Teijlingen, E., Sah, S.K., Wasti, S.P. (2022) Factors Influencing COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake among Nepali in the UK: A Qualitative Study, Vaccine 10(5), 780;https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050780
Register to attend (FREE) to our Favela Virtual Tours – all welcome!
Dates:
Tuesday 16th Novemberat 1 pm – Favela Virtual Tour Rio, Political and economic sustainability
Tuesday 7th December at 1 pm – Favela Virtual Tour Rio, Brazil 2, Cultural and environmental sustainability
Would you like to travel light? Would you like to explore new places from a comfortable seat of your choice? Join us to our favela virtual tours in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)!
On Tuesday 16th Novemberat 1 pm, professional tour guides and favela residents, we’ll take you into an online tour to get to know the favela’s everyday life, residents’ social campaigns, their leaders and favelas’ storytellers.
We will be debating on economic and political sustainability issues in and between Rio’s favelas. We will be understanding how local favela organizations mobilize residents’ rights; how they collectively articulate their agendas and how they develop strategies to boost the local economy and political resistance. These issues are link with SGDs goals, especially goals 1 (No poverty) 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).
The tour
will be led by the local guides: Cosme Felippsen, from Morro da Providência Role do favelados ; Erik Martins, from Rocinha, Rocinha by Rocinha and the Coletivo de Guias from Santa Marta Santa Marta Collective, who will work together during this virtual tour.
On Tuesday 7th December at 1 pm, two favela museums director and one favela tour guide in partnership with Revolusolar, we’ll talk about protecting favela local heritage and providing solar energy for favela’s residents. These issues are link with SGDs goals, especially goals 1 (No poverty) 10 (Reduced Inequalities), 7 (Affordable and clean energy) and 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).
The Museum of Favela (MUF) is a community-based civil society organization founded by cultural leaders living in Pavão, Pavãozinho and Cantagalo favelas. MUF aims to preserve the memory of the community, promoting the connection between residents and local culture. One current attraction is the ‘Casas-Tela’ Circuit which show different favela houses decorated with art murals. To find out more – MUF trailer
The Museum Sankofa: memories and histories from Rocinha is on the streets of Rocinha. The museum narrates what the favela o
f Rocinha really is, how this favela was constituted and where this favela’s culture came from. To find out more – Museum Sankofa
Dinei Medina and Revolusolar from favela of Chapéu Mangueira are installing solar panels to generate electricity inside the favela. They have already installed three panels in two hostels and in one public building and they developed the first solar energy cooperative insight a favela. To find our more – Solar Cooperative
These tours are part of our project ‘Promoting reflection and sharing within and across international communities’ in partnership with Bournemouth University, Oxford Brookes University, Universidad Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, University of Malaysia Sarawak and Universidade Lurio. It includes one ministry office (Autoridade Reguladora das Comunicações de Moçambique). For more information International Network.
In late March, the BBC launched Culture In Quarantine across television, radio and online, to give the nation access to the arts at a time when it needs it the most. Providing extraordinary access to shuttered exhibitions, performances and museums, a virtual book festival and much more.
This week, Culture In Quarantine turns its attention to our museums and art galleries and the arts and humanities research community are asked to get involved!
MuseumFromHome is a whole day of broadcast and social media activity on Thursday 30 April. This includes an exhibition on the Clash (marking the 40th anniversary of London Calling) at the Museum of London. The BBC is welcoming people to get involved on social media platforms using the hashtag #MuseumFromHome. They intend to post as much as they can and want people to get involved sharing material using the #MuseumFromHome hashtag.
Please get involved by sharing public-friendly outputs from your research projects that have a connection to museums and galleries. Think about including visual assets, such as imagery and video, or linking to public-friendly resources.
Please include the following hashtags and handles, so that you have the best chance of your content being shared or reposted by the BBC and the AHRC:
Do you have a great digital asset which could be published on BBC Culture in Quarantine? If so, please contact the engagement team at the AHRC via engage@ahrc.ukri.org who are working to supply AHRC-funded research content to the BBC.
This discussion forum is the second ‘spin-out’ event following the Conference ‘Deep Transformations and the Future of Organisations’ (6-7 December, in Tunis). It would be a great opportunity to share the research outcomes of BU and ITU (International Telecommunication Union, one of the specialised organisations under the UN), inviting Dr Bruce Gracie, a chairman of the Telecommunication Standardisation Advisory Group (TSAG) of ITU.
As a kick-off speech, Bruce will talk about the current requirements of the telecommunication standardisations in the global context, focusing on five key themes; AI, IoT, 5G, Big Data, and OTTs.
From BU, Dr Marios Angelopoulos (Sci-Tech) will discuss the recent his achievement in the Study Group 20 of ITU-T, focusing on the impact of ICT (ITU Recommendation) in the area of the Internet of Things (IoT). Specifically, focusing on the reference model of IoT-related crowdsourced systems for an emerging networking paradigm.
Marios’s talk will be followed by Dr Hiroko Oe (FoM) , who used to be a deputy head of the delegation of Japan to the ITU, will explain the pathway how the ITU has been contributing to the development of seamless world based on the ICT, specifically focusing on the preparation tasks towards the World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF-21).
BU is an academic member of the ITU, with only five UK universities; Anglia Ruskin University, Birkbeck College University of London, CISD-SOAS, University of London, Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of Bristol. Marios and Hiroko have been working as a team with dedicated support from Dr Angelos Stefanidis, Head of Department Computing & Informatics. The research team is aiming to contribute to the policy coordination and also cooperating with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) to develop actionable impacts for the ICT sector globally.
This Discussion Forum will be carried out by a Skype conference method. Dr Hiroko Oe will act as a facilitator for this Forum and Dr Yan Liang (FoM) will perform as a discussant for this event who liaises with her research interest in digital marketing and digital retailing.
This Discussion Forum will provide unique and interesting views from the ICT standardisation perspectives, including key topics of the UN SDGs (e.g., Goal 9 ‘Industry, innovation and infrastructure’, Goal 11 ‘Sustainable cities and communities’, and Goal 17 ‘Partnerships for the goals’). The theme of this Forum is also in line with the SIAs of ‘Animation, Simulation & Visualisation’ and ‘ Assistive Technology’.
BU ECRs and the PG students will be invited to the Forum, too.
For more details, please email to hoe@brounemouth.ac.uk
Dr. Rachel Arnold’s paper ‘Parallel worlds: an ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital’ [1] originally published in Social Science & Medicine (Elsevier) has been reprinted in full in MIDIRS. This is quite an accolade and should help this paper reach a wider audience. Rachel graduated with a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences in 2016, illustrating that some of the best papers get into print (long) after completing one’s Ph.D. thesis.
Reference:
Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2018) Parallel worlds: an ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital, Social Science & Medicine 126:33-40.
From educational toys to governmental guidelines and detailed nursery progress reports, there are lots of resources available to help parents track and facilitate their children’s development. But while there are tricks we can use to teach children to talk, count, draw or respect others, a surprisingly big part of how they develop is determined by the culture they grow up in.
Child development is a dynamic, interactive process. Every child is unique in interacting with the world around them, and what they invoke and receive from others and the environment also shapes how they think and behave. Children growing up in different cultures receive specific inputs from their environment. For that reason, there’s a vast array of cultural differences in children’s beliefs and behaviour.
Language is one of the many ways through which culture affects development. We know from research on adultsthat languages forge how people think and reason. Moreover, the content and focus of what people talk about in their conversations also vary across cultures. As early as infancy, mothers from different cultures talk to their babies differently. German mothers tend to focus on their infants’ needs, wishes or them as a person. Mothers of the African tribal group Nso, on the other hand, focus more on social context. This can include the child’s interactions with other people and the rules surrounding it.
Masai children. Syndromeda/Shutterock
This early exposure affects the way children attend to themselves or to their relationship with others – forming their self image and identity. For example, in Western European and North American countries, children tend to describe themselves around their unique characteristics – such as “I am smart” or “I am good at drawing”. In Asian, African, Southern European and South American countries, however, children describe themselves more often around their relationship with others and social roles. Examples of this include “I am my parents’ child” or “I am a good student”.
Because children in different cultures differ in how they think about themselves and relate to others, they also memorise events differently. For example, when preschoolers were asked to describe a recent special personal experience, European-American children provided more detailed descriptions, recalled more specific events and stressed their preferences, feelings and opinions about it more than Chinese and Korean children. The Asian children instead focused more on the people they had met and how they related to themselves.
Cultural effects of parenting
Parents in different cultures also play an important role in moulding children’s behaviour and thinking patterns. Typically, parents are the ones who prepare the children to interact with wider society. Children’s interaction with their parents often acts as the archetype of how to behave around others – learning a variety of socio-cultural rules, expectations and taboos. For example, young children typically develop a conversational style resembling their parents’ – and that often depends on culture.
European-American children frequently provide long, elaborative, self-focused narratives emphasising personal preferences and autonomy. Their interaction style also tends to be reciprocal, taking turns in talking. In contrast, Korean and Chinese children’s accounts are usually brief, relation-oriented, and show a great concern with authority. They often take a more passive role in the conversations. The same cultural variations in interaction are also evident when children talk with an independent interviewer.
Children in the Western world question their parents’ authority more. Gargonia/Shutterstock
Cultural differences in interactions between adults and children also influence how a child behaves socially. For instance, in Chinese culture, where parents assume much responsibility and authority over children, parents interact with children in a more authoritative manner and demand obedience from their children. Children growing up in such environments are more likely to comply with their parents’ requests, even when they are reluctant to do so.
By contrast, Chinese immigrant children growing up in England behave more similarly to English children, who are less likely to follow parental demands if unwilling.
From class to court
As the world is getting increasingly globalised, knowledge regarding cultural differences in children’s thinking, memory and how they interact with adults has important practical implications in many areas where you have to understand a child’s psychology. For instance, teachers may need to assess children who come from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Knowing how children coming from a different culture think and talk differently can help the teacher better interview them as part of an oral academic test, for example.
Another important area is forensic investigations. Being aware that Chinese children tend to recall details regarding other people and be brief in their initial response to questions may enable the investigator to allow more time for narrative practice to prepare the child to answer open-ended questions and prompt them with follow up questions.
Also, knowing that Chinese children may be more sensitive and compliant to authority figures – and more obedient to a perpetrator within the family – an interviewer may need to spend more time in building rapport to help the child relax and reduce their perceived authority. They should also be prepared to be patient with reluctance in disclosing abuse within families.
While children are unique and develop at their own pace, the cultural influence on their development is clearly considerable. It may even affect how quickly children reach different developmental milestones, but research on this complicated subject is still inconclusive. Importantly, knowledge about cultural differences can also help us pin down what all children have in common: an insatiable curiosity about the world and a love for the people around them.
Did you know that government departments publish their areas of research interest? This is a guide to where research funds might go, and is useful if you are thinking about policy impact.
The collection is here, and four new ones have been added today:
The DCMS one says “It is designed to encourage researchers and academics to explore those topics that could be of benefit to DCMS and our sectors and act as a starting point for future collaboration.”
There are strategic themes and long lists of specific questions – if you’re working on any of these, you might want to read our blog from earlier today and contact the policy team.
High-performing research units (HPRUs) have more staff with PhDs, professorial postitions, international experience and externally funded salaries (mainly from external research funding agencies);
HPRUs focus on recruiting the best and retaining them;
HPRUs provide training and mentorship programmes to develop staff;
Activities supporting the recruitment, development and motivation of researchers are critical drivers of research excellence;
Staff within HPRUs display a distinct ethos of social and ethical values;
Leaders of HPRUs have earned ‘accountable autonomy’;
HPRUs receive more income per researcher than the average research unit;
HPRUs enable and encourage researchers to initiate collaborations organically as opposed to a top down approach;
Activities relating to collaborating with others, creating and implementing research strategies, securing a mix of funding and responding to competitive pressure are important;
‘On-the-ground’ or ‘day-to-day’ initiatives by individual researchers can be at least as important as the ‘high-level strategic’ initiatives instigated by institutions.
Please do read the documents above if you would like more information on how the key factors were determined.
RKEO’s Delivery Plan is currently being finalised with UET. The plan identifies that research funding is crucial for building a sustainable research base and enhancing the vitality and sustainability of the research environment. We will be working with the Faculties to support the development of high-performing research teams and to support BU with mechanisms and requirements for building a successful research culture. This will also be supported by the new and improved RKE Development Framework (to be launched this summer). A variety of opportunities will be available, which will include greater access to targeted bid writers, proof-reading services, and stronger direction to strategically important funding options. We will organise activities to facilitate collaboration and networking both internally and externally with academic and non-academic partners. Keep an eye on the research blog for further information.
In the meantime, don’t forget it is BRAD week next week. Click here to see what training and development opportunities are available to you.
The Interdisciplinary Research Week (IRW) has a number of cultural highlights for everyone’s tastes. Free popcorn will be available at the films as well as refreshments. The events include:
In the midst of separation, one boy’s silent longing has the power to change everything.
On his ninth birthday, Thomas travels with his mother to visit his estranged father who, since an acrimonious divorce, has abandoned urban living in favour of an isolated rural life in the English Lake District. The bitter separation of his parents is not something Thomas understands, nor does he understand his own dysfunctional behaviour as a silent cry for help. As a digital native city boy, Thomas’s encounter with the natural world, and his gradual understanding of the pivotal connection he provides for his, ultimately, lonely parents, leads to realisation and discovery. There are things his parents don’t know about each other that only he can reveal. Perhaps he has the power and the means to change everything. (Fiction: 88 minutes. 2014).
Following the film there will be a Q & A session with the Director.
In 2014, Lizzie Sykes was awarded an Arts Council-funded residency at Mottisfont, a National Trust property and gardens in Hampshire. Mottisfont is a place where artists have met and worked for hundreds of years.
Are You There? is a film made from inside the Mottisfont residence. It is performed by Louise Tanoto, and is a response to how it feels to be alone in the house and to be inescapably linked to it in a private and intimate way; free from expected codes of physical behaviour that such a formal space normally represents.
Following the film there will be a chance for a Q&A session
BU’s Emerge Research Centre has a research music performing group, a creative space where each person develops their own instruments and music based on personal research into sound as well as gesture and technology as part of their creative practice.
The experimental music and sound-art event features a soundtrack of electronic atmospheres, noisescapes, pulses and rhythms, tones and drones. It will include an exploration of hardware-hacked devices, simple electronic instruments, data networks and basic sensors to augment and inform laptop improvisations, immersive fixed-media soundscapes and live visuals.
Following the high profile visit to the UK by President Xi Jinping, much is being said in the press about the impact on the UK economy. Some of this will, undoubtedly, relate to the research sector. For example, according to this report on GOV.UK, more than £2 billion of healthcare trade deals and collaborations have been signed between Chinese and UK companies, universities and organisations during President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Britain.
Similarly, a £325 million suite of creative and technology partnerships has been announced – these partnerships, encompassing film, TV, music and advanced engineering, will develop innovative new technologies in cutting-edge facilities in both the UK and China.
To find out more, look at the press releases search on GOV.UK. You can also search for other international activity by selecting the country of interest.
The Guardian has provided a summary of trade announcements made during President Xi Jinping’s visit, which includes the creative industries and cultural exchanges.
If you would like to find research opportunities, make use of BU’s subscription to ResearchProfessional.
Watch this space for further blog posts on international research, including China.
A new report, published today, addresses the challenge that cultural institutes face when trying to capture the full value of their work to individuals in society. Commissioned by the AHRC’s Cultural Value Project and using two of the UK premier cultural institutions, the Natural History Museum (NHM) and Tate Liverpool (TL), the report explores alternative approaches and practical evaluation techniques to measuring the value of culture.
The report addresses an evidence gap as far as cultural policy is concerned and has the potential to bring quantitative economic techniques to policy debates which, say the authors of the report, have been “fragmented and curiously ungrounded in empirical evidence”.
View the AHRC press release and link to the report here and find out more.
Published research in the Journal for the Royal Society of Medicine Open (JRSM Open for short), conducted by Professor Colin Pritchard and Andrew Harding in HSC, is today (Friday 02/05/14) the focus of an article in the Independent newspaper.
Andrew Harding
After the Francis Report into the scandal at Mid Staffordshire lay considerable blame at the Board for failing to tackle “…an insidious culture…focused on doing the system’s business – not that of the patient…”, Professor Pritchard and Andrew Harding looked at the occupational backgrounds of non executive directors (NEDs) of 146 NHS acute trusts (n=1,001 NEDs). The NHS is modelled on corporate governance, where a board of directors are scrutinised and held to account by non executive directors.
Considering NEDs principle task is to hold the executive, and thus the NHS, to account, the study found a shocking lack of non executive directors with medical, clinical or patient representation or background. As the Independent headline indicates, only 8% of non executive board members were healthcare professionals. Instead, it was far more prevalent and common for non executive directors to be from a commercial, or financial background – with a high proportion having been employed or current employees of major financials firms such as Deloite, KPMG, Grant Thornton, Merrill Lynch, Price-WaterHouse Coopers and JP Morgan. Females NEDs and those from ethnic minorities were also found to be in short supply.
For a full breakdown of the findings the article can be found, and is openly available here.
The Doctor, his TARDIS-driven adventures, along with companions and iconic monsters, are all over the TV and newspapers. The Inner World of Doctor Who is a new book, just out. Written by Prof Mike Rustin (UEL, Tavsitock Clinic) and Prof. Iain MacRury in the Media School here at BU. This publication offers an accessible account of Doctor Who. It focusses just on the most recent television output – 2005 to 2013 – and examines why the show continues to fascinate us.
The Doctor’s relationships with his companions are to the fore. Various chapters also consider the dramatic meanings of monsters and time travel – linking the show back to ideas about audience experience – and what we might ‘learn’ from Doctor Who. It looks at the complexity of the new Doctor Who in its depictions of the suffering of the Doctor, as well that of his at times vulnerable and dependent companions. A connection is made between TV content and some (but not all) elements in the experience of psychotherapy.
We propose that one way of thinking about the Doctor is to see him as a kind of inadvertent ‘therapist’ – with the TV dramas on screen rendering troubled states of mind and society within a rich cultural frame. Doctor Who extends a fairy-tale and children’s fictional tradition across its contemporary media platforms. As we argue: In Doctor Who everyday life is often revealed to be “Bigger on the inside.”
The 50th anniversary won’t come again and it provided a chastening deadline we’re glad to have met it! The book was inspired by the startling success of the show in recent years. Why does it attract such attention and affection? While thinking about it I got further daily encouragement from the TARDIS that sits on the ground floor of Weymouth House, courtesy of our former Media School colleague, Dr Andrew Ireland.
The Inner World of Doctor Who is published with Karnac books. It should be of interest to diehard fans. But it is written, too, for people who probably wouldn’t claim the title ‘fan’ but for whom all the fuss about Time Lords and Tardises just now (The Doctor is even on postage stamps!) is provoking the thought: “What’s this all about!?” The Inner World of Doctor Who offers some answers.
– Written with a colleague, Prof. Mike Rustin, from UEL and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust the book emerges from an enriching collaboration that began in some teaching sessions at the Tavistock clinic on their MA in Psychoanalytic Studies. It has now developed into this book. The book came together quite quickly and has been usefully supported by an AHRC funded network called “Media and the Inner World”. The book is published as part of their new series with Karnac called Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture.
If you are interested the book can be found at http://www.karnacbooks.com/Product.asp?PID=34857 or as an e-book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-World-Doctor-Psychoanalytic-Psychoanalysis/dp/1782200835
Implementation of 2020 EU Biodiversity Strategy: The European Commission, Directorates-General for the Environment/Climate Action, has published a call for tenders for the implementation of the 2020 EU biodiversity strategy: priorities for the restoration of ecosystems and their services in the EU. The aim is to provide support in relation to Action 6a of the EU biodiversity strategy. Target 6a concerns the development of a strategic framework to set priorities for restoration at subnational, national and EU levels.
EU–Chile Co-operation on Regional Innovation Systems: The European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, has published a call for tenders for the EU–Chile co-operation on regional innovation systems in the framework of regional policy.In the framework of its dialogues on regional policy with countries outside the European Union, the Directorate-General for Regional Policy is keen to share its experience on European regional policy by offering technical assistance, training and expert advice related to specific regional development’s interests raised by their external partners.
The intention is to organise a twinning exercise and a training programme to support officials responsible for regional innovation systems in Chile.
EU–Latin America Co-operation on Cross-Border Co-operation: The European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, has published a call for tenders for the EU–Latin America co-operation on cross-border co-operation in the framework of regional policy. In the framework of its dialogues on regional policy with countries outside the European Union (EU), the Directorate-General for Regional Policy is keen to share its experience on European regional policy by offering a mix of information sessions and study visits related to specific regional development’s interests raised by their external partners. The intention is to organise up to two information sessions in Europe for Latin American participants and two workshops in Latin America.
EU–China Regional Policy Dialogue: The European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, has published a call for tenders for the EU–China regional policy dialogue. In the framework of its dialogues on regional policy with third countries, the Directorate-General for Regional Policy is keen to share its experience on European regional policy by offering a mix of information sessions and study visits related to specific regional development’s interests raised by our external partners. The intention is to organise two information sessions in Europe for Chinese participants, followed by two seminars in China and four targeted information sessions in Europe for small groups of Chinese participants.
Preparatory Action on Culture in External Relations: The European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture, has published a call for tenders for the provision of a preparatory action on culture in external relations. The overall objective to which the contract will contribute is to support ongoing policy reflection and development on strengthening the role of culture in external relations and to nurture future work in this area. In particular, it should contribute to formulating recommendations for a strategy on culture in European external relations.
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In late March, the BBC launched 
MuseumFromHome
I have recently read a couple of interesting reports on research cultures within universities and what makes a high-performing research unit.
Upcoming opportunities for PGRs – collaborate externally
BU involved in new MRF dissemination grant
New COVID-19 publication
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024
Horizon Europe News – December 2023